Mr. Putin’s decision to not attend the friendly match—which, by the way, ended in a 0-0 draw—may not mean that this installment of “football diplomacy” has necessarily failed but it is worth looking at Turkey’s past forays into sports diplomacy for context. Despite the fact that the relationship between the two countries is much better than during the last meeting between Turkish and Russian teams, when Lokomotiv Moscow faced Fenerbahce Istanbul last February, Turkey’s previous experiences in this field didn’t go quite according to plan.

Six years on, the hopes born out of the so-called “football diplomacy” are dead in the water, and an Armenian commentator writing in 2015 went so far as to call current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “The Football Player Who Killed ‘Football Diplomacy’” . Later in 2014, with Mr. Gul out as President, the hopes for any rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia fell by the wayside even though this failure was most likely not the fault of individual leaders. The limits of football diplomacy were uncovered when realist geopolitics—driven by nationalist hard-liners on both sides—pressured their respective leaders to back down from normalization.

Even though we want to believe that sports can transcend difference and emphasize the commonalities we all share, it is a fact that realist geopolitics is a strong force. Unfortunately, old animosities die hard and sport can just as easily open old wounds (as we saw during the Serbia-Albania match in October 2014) as it can (at least try) to heal them (as we saw with South Africa’s rugby team after the end of apartheid). We will see if the recent rapprochement between Russia and Turkey that was reflected on the soccer pitch will survive the test of time given new developments such as Turkey’s recent incursion into Syrian territory in a bid to secure the southern border. Personally, I root for sports-related diplomacy to be successful regardless of the context; realistically, I know its limitations all too well.